Units

[rmcd-mscb]

Hi Mark,
I have some questions about the bmi function get_var_units.

1. Is this function solely informational or is it also used for conversions in pymt?
2. PRMS uses english units, is it ok?
3. Setting aside the english units in prms for now, If you assign a unit to I/O variable, is it required to conform to UDUNITS package?

Thanks,
Rich

[mdpiper]

@rmcd-mscb Thanks for putting this on GitHub -- I like having a record of our conversation, which I'm sure would get lost in my email.

1. Yes, get_var_units is used in for unit conversion in pymt.

2. Yup, UDUNITS can handle English-to-SI conversion; e.g. (I happen to have it installed on my Linux box):

    $ udunits2
    You have: acre ft
    You want: hectare cm
        1 acre ft = 12.3349 (hectare cm)
        x/(hectare cm) = 12.3349*(x/(acre ft))
   

3. No, any units can be used with a variable.

My thoughts on this: we just haven't done a lot of model coupling yet with pymt. I think we have a good architecture, but I'm sure that there will be things that we'll need to address as we gain more experience.